Here are a few things we think that you’ll find very helpful to be aware of as you shop for a web developer, even if you don’t end up with us;

1. Most other developers are “freelancers”.

Regardless of how nice their home page looks, the vast majority of developers aren’t structured for long term support & growth on the web. Many of our clients come to us by referral and simply because they’re unable to get proper support, updates, and service to their existing website that they’re still happy with; not strictly because they’re looking for upgrades.

2. Most other developers don’t know much about hosting or security.

Over 99% of website development businesses do not take care of their own hosting — the vast majority will set up your website on a hosting account with one of an innumerable # of providers that charge as little as $3/month for web hosting. What kind of quality, speed, reliability, and service can you expect from that? If your website gets hacked, will they pay someone to clean it up for you, will they take responsibility? Is there any redundancy if you get a sudden surge of traffic from publicity, backups if things go down?

3. Making beautiful websites is easy. Making websites that create tons of business, isn’t.

It’s the dirty secret of the web development world. Making a beautiful website isn’t a challenge anymore, at all. With many commercial websites out there selling great looking ready-to-go themes & great development software easily available, it’s not that impressive to be able to make a surprisingly visually appealing website anymore. What makes the difference are hundreds of details that are learned through years of experience and the intangibles such as; marketing savvy, dedication, service, security know-how, hosting know-how, and that irreplaceable ability we have to understand a business well enough to market it on the web exceptionally.

4. Flash is pretty but terrible for business results.

While some of the best looking websites on the net at face value are made with flash aka “shockwave”; it’s a terrible idea to use it on your business website. For starters; it’s slow, it very negatively impacts your ability to do powerful SEO and rank well on Google, it invalidates the second most important navigational feature in browsing “the back button”, and it doesn’t work on many mobile devices such as the iPhone.

5. Content is king; but simplicity and clarity are tough.

More important than our ability to make you a great looking website & even get piles of traffic flowing in is our ability to help you get the content you need on your website, in the right place; and presented in the right way. Ultimately, the rest doesn’t matter if your customers don’t find your website to be helpful, informative, easy to navigate, and engaging.

6. The automated SEO reports many developers include to try show they’re doing something for you aren’t necessarily worth anything.

SEO only “works” as much as you put work into it – there are lots of programs out there for developers to automatically generate ranking reports and email them to you, disillusioning you that they are staying on-top of things for you. Contrary to popular belief, exceptional SEO requires constant tweaking & input on the part of the developer to keep a competitive edge, and significant amounts of good-old-fashioned “hard work” in link building.

Google’s algorithm that determines the rankings of the natural or “organic” search results [the ones that get the lion’s share of the clicks] change’s often and gets progressively more intelligent and difficult to artificially manipulate all the time. To get the money spots ie; first page rankings for the critical generic business search terms with tons of traffic volume — it takes an ongoing commitment to internet marketing.

Google *and* your customers will be looking for great relevant content, ongoing updates & promotions, ability to connect & communicate with social media, and easy access to all information relating to your business. Our company has been structured from *Day 1* with this progressively more true reality in mind, and we can help you to get the edge over the competition when it comes to this — in a long term, sustainable & genuine way.